The episode starts with more people essentially not letting our heroes perform rock; however, the samurai radar goes off while they perform out in the open. Suddenly samurai appear and chase them away, so they still don’t have a place to perform. Kogorou decides to separate from the group so he can have time to himself while the other two go to take a bath. They realize that sort of room has a big echo so it’s the perfect place to perform. Er… okay.

Hijikata and Okita are also bathing and talking to one another naked. Welp, fanservice is fanservice I guess since everyone so far has just had a towel wrapped around their waist. Ryouma’s friend convinces the owner of the bath by pretending to be a businessman or something. While the trio practices for the big day, Kogorou can’t focus and screws up. He decides to leave since he’s having personal issues.

Something, something, they’re handing out flyers and the Shinsengumi are warning people not to go. Something, something, they think Korogou is upset cause he won’t get naked in a shared bath. Their moment of awkwardness is interrupted when the Shinsengumi confiscate all of their merch. On top of that Korogou is saying he can’t perform when he’s like this. Something, something, the Shinsengumi are at the bath they’re going to perform at and they’re going to battle naked?

So yeah, everyone gets naked and they convince Korogou to perform with his raw emotions so he can get past whatever is bothering him. Insert really bad CG as they finally play in front of a large, naked crowd. The concert goes swimmingly with all the naked patrons swinging around their towels instead of glowsticks. I just actually typed that sentence. Okay, things I didn’t think I’d ever write for 91.8 The Fan.

My tacked on top five list is very simple, “Why would you actually watch this show?”

You thought this time the show would have some actual historical facts (Hetalia led you wrong before, but you still hoped)

You just weren’t getting enough fanservice from Free! this season

You watch every anime that airs every season until your eventual anime burn-out

You actually thought the music was pretty good and was pleasantly surprised by the results

A show that twists history and makes it was unbelievable as possible is actually right up your alley

I’d like to stress that I don’t hate this show, it just isn’t going to get a ton of praise from me. I have to be in a very specific mindset to watch something that has so many leaps of logic, low levels of quality, and just random japery. I am not often in said mood.

Watch Samurai Jam ~Bakumatsu Rock~ on Crunchyroll or talk about this episode on our forums.

Captain Earth (Episode Sixteen)Player: Bobby HenshinClass: DJ

I hope your ready for some giant robot action. Because for the first time in the last six or seven episodes, I don’t know I’ve lost count, we finally get A giant robot fight scene! This is episode sixteen. Or as I like to call it, The assembling of the Kiltgang Rangers. Seeing as now all the Kiltgangs have been awaken and are ready to wipe out man kind. How are The Midsummer Knights going to fight off seven Kiltgangs when they can’t keep their mechs in good condition fighting just two? We’ll lets find out.

Our episode starts out with Daichi being called into the boss’ office. He is still recovering from his wounds from the last battle. But enough of that, let’s see whats going on at Evil HQ. Seriously, it just cuts to there. I guess the anime wants us to people the villains are the main focus here seeing as they are the only ones that get the most screen time in the whole series! Anyway, Kube , who is now Puck in Kube’s body, invites Amarok and Moco to dinner in his office to try to apologize for the rude behavior and says he will leave all Orgone energy research to them. They both are skeptical of Kube’s sudden change and decide to pay Puck a little visit. They want to know if Puck had anything to do with Kube’s sudden change of attitude. He just explains that Kube has been feeling a lot of stress lately and through his secretary, he has found a way to relieve that built up stress. I’ll let your minds wonder there.

Well, as long as it keeps Kube away from their activities, they say its fine. Cutting to Kube in the elevator with his secretary making out. She leaves the elevator with watering , in love anime eyes when Kube gives her possibly the creepiest smile I have ever seen. He saves having a body is great because it is easier to manipulate people and that’s what the Planetary Gears and humans have in common. So Puck might be the big mastermind behind everything. Only the next 9 episodes will tell. Cue the Opening credits!

Which I never really got around to talking about this new opening. This new opening is called TOKYO Dreamer from a soft rock band called NICO Touches the Walls. Seriously, that is the name of the band. They have some really good music. A lot like that last openings band. Moving on though as we are now in a concert hall, packed with people, to see one of the Kiltgangs that was a pop idol before they awakened, having a concert. The blonde haired idol, Ai, greets her crowd with he familiar idol catch phrase saying that she loves them so much that she is going to eat them up. But says it in an extremely creepy way. Meanwhile, at the Kiltgang’s under ground cellar base. Seriously, with all this jumping around I feel like the announcer to the 1980’s Justice Friends announcer. Sorry, I’m using the word seriously a lot, but I want you to know I’m not joking when I say this. Anyway, we find Siren loading canisters with Orgone energy with her singing.

Turns out that Orgone energy can’t be found anywhere. It is at its purest when there are areas filled with people who are angry and full of conflict. So it’s angry energy? Then all they need to do is find Hulk and they will have an unlimited supply. Bugbear and Lieban wait outside as Ai shows up and a very revealing dress. You know the ones that have just two pieces of clothe holding in their breasts and is tied up behind the neck. How do you keep those in place I will never know. if any females who know how that dress works please tell us in the comments? That would be awesome. Amarok, Malkin (Moco), Siren and Zimbardo come out of the van and now they are all here and ready to go.

They all bow to Siren and are now ready for the first full Kiltgang Debriefing. This is a good time to go down the list of which Kiltgangs’ I like the best. Due to this weeks challenge. Now I am basing my list on Powers, Strength, character development and personality. Here is my list Starting from my least favorite.

7. Aiatar – She is kinda the stuck up character with really nothing to contribute. Besides shields and fire power which you will see soon. Plus she just annoys me.

6. Zimbardo – Basic, brooding teenager with physic powers. Been done.

5. Malkin – What do you even do!? Besides being a pair of walking pair of boobs pink Harley Quinn hair?

4. Amarok – Even though he is the supposed leader of the others, besides the princess, he really doesn’t do much ether. Besides planning so I guess that’s something.

3. Siren – The Kiltgangs princess and battery recharger. I liked her better as Setsuna, I was kinda sad when they awakened her because I felt bad for her upbringing.

2. Lieban – The speedster of the group. I don’t feel like she will be with the Kiltgangs long because she doesn’t have the same drive as them. She just wants to feel the wind in her face and find a nice opponent.

1. Bugbear – His storyline was one of the most original and interesting things I has seen in an anime and it was only two episodes long. I kinda wish they made an anime based on him. From his slave upbringing, to cage fighting, to his relationship with the boss’ daughter. Just the pain and struggle of losing, rebuilding and losing it all again just made for a great story. I wish he becomes a good guy in future episodes because I like him the best and don’t want him to become a villain.

The debriefing starts as Amarok tells them about how Albian, Teppei, and The Princess of the Blume, Hana, Have become Neotepys and are now one the Earth’s side. Siren is shocked to hear this news. Even though she saw Hana before and saw for herself. And i know they still have their previous memories so I don’t know why this is surprising but I can understand how she didn’t know about Teppei.
Siren was only able to recharger one Orgone battery so Aiatar volunteers to be the first to break the Earths defenses. Now we get to see a new Kiltgang mech, finally!

But first we have protagonist story line! We are now at an old shrine where Akari is prying at the alter. When then find Hana serving watermelon to Daichi and Teppei in the hospital. Pitz is hurt but his life is not in danger. With Pitz hurt, they have lost their ability to since when a Kiltgang attack is going to happen. She asks if the high ups are mad at her and if that why he was called to their office at the start of the episode. Going to the meeting, we learn that now that every organization has learned that Hana can now fire the Blume. So now they will be trying everything to get their hands on her. So it is up to the Midsummer Knights to protect her and keep them from obtaining her. Back at the hospital, Akari comes in as their were discussing Operation Summer. But Akari stops the conversation as she brings in a watermelon. She just tends to stop conversations when she walks in doesn’t she? Anyway they start talking about her shrine visit and they tell Hana about festivals, because she has never been to one. So they decide that after they beat the Kiltgangs, they will take her to a festival. Uh Oh! Daichi what have you done?! You have activated the certain death flag for all anime characters! Well hopefully it doesn’t come to that.

We cut back to the meeting where we learn about the Kiltgang space ship base is located behind Uranus. Okay anime…I need to stop you here. We are on episode 16…and you have yet to explain anything to use at all and are throwing in plot point after plot point without even explaining to us what is going on! First the Kiltgangs are aliens, now they are human children who are turned into alien robots? No wait, they are actually just avatars of aliens being beamed from a ship. Which, oh yeah, alien space ship behind Uranus?! What happened to giant pink and purple crystal sticking out of the dark side of the moon you told us about?! Not to mention that we have three organizations who want to restart the world just in case the kiltgangs do destroy the world. Two of them that wish to be rulers of the new world mind you. Plus you are throwing us alien worlds out of no where with no explanation of what the word really is! You leave to audience to decipher what the word means. Anime…just please…take an episode to explain things and the story line. That is all I ask. Also if you want us to be on the heroes side, you need to actually do character development on the heroes! Seriously, the story has done very little character development on or heroes and has given all the screen time to the villains. which I am kinda routing for them at this point because they are all you show us! Just…Explain…Things! Ugh! Okay, sorry about that. Just needed to rant a bit.

So Operation Summer is the plan to destroy the alien space ship. But time is cut short as the sirens go off. Meaning there is a new Kiltgang robot heading for earth. This new robot is a yellow colored, turret type mech. Using flower petal looking lasers and an energy shield. Both Earth and Nebula Engines are out of commission and the missile satellites have no effect. So the boss orders to send in a new engine called Flare Engine. Piloted by Hana. Whoa! Hana has her own Engine? You guys decided to pull this out of your butt? Also how long does it take you to make new engines?! at this rate you can mass produce this babies and protect the Earth like it was just a typical Tuesday. Daichi is reluctant be Hana asks him to let her go. Daichi agrees and the lunch commences. Begin five-minute long transformation sequence! When now get to meet Flare Engine. Which is a Red mech with giant laser canons on it’s back. And by red, I mean there is no other color on this robot but red. So the next few minutes is nothing but lasers being fired at each other. Then we learn that every time Aiatar’s shield
takes a laser, it absorbs it and uses it to power a giant laser that she begins to charge and fire at Hana. Now remember last episode where I said the news said there was going to be a solar flare? Well the solar flare happens and both mechs shutdown.

While the mechs float there it looks like Hana still has the ability to move but has just lost her sight of the enemy. She uses her perception to figure out where she is and fires at her at point-blank range. Aiater is destroyed as her Ego Block flies away and the day is won. End of episode. So this episode was okay but I still wish they would explain things because I’m still pretty lost. Next episode we get to see more members of Salty Dog, which was the organization that Creepy McJerkface worked for. See you all next week!

Once again, I’m writing this last second. I’m totally speedrunning Simulblast next week. I expect mine to be done tomorrow and ready for next Tuesday.

Also here is my Top 5 Stands (that we’ve seen so far) list.

5. In the fifth slot we have Silver Chariot. He might not be as strong as Star Platinum, but his ability to shed his armor to trade defensive properties for speed is pretty awesome. Also, he goes on to become even more amazing far into the future. Let’s hope JoJo the anime continues after Stardust Crusaders so you can witness it.

4. In fourth is Star Platinum. While in this series he will become even more amazing, he’s basically a punching machine. An amazing punching machine with master level speed and precision.

3. In third place we have Strength. While it may have been used by a creepy pedophile Orangutan, a fully functioning ship you can create anywhere is pretty useful. Being able to use the ship as a weapon commanding all of it’s parts is even MORE useful. It however still just a ship so…

2. In second we have Justice. Enyaba may have been defeated by Star Platinum’s impressive lung capacity, but without the deus ex machina it was incredibly OP. The lightest wound was game over for any enemy, and she had hundreds if not thousands at her disposal to fight for her.

1. In first place, the top Stand so far in my opinion, and one of my favorites regardless of if we’ve seen them or not, is The Emperor. A gun with infinite bullets which can be controlled by the shooter to always be on target, that can be willed in and out of existence at the user’s command. Incredibly useful and deadly. Hol horse was really only defeated by his cowardice and the ambush Enyaba laid out for him.

So we left off with Enyaba being captured and Hol Horse stealing the crew’s ride.

Early OP Break! Usually something more than “Oh yeah she’s still captured” happens before now.

So we start off in Pakistan, and Joseph wants to buy some doner kebabs. These are apparently as common as hamburgers over here. Regardless, we enter into an awesome haggling tutorial. Haggling is still very much alive in parts of the world, and you’ll be ripped off hardcore if you don’t know how to do this, and it’ll be your own fault for being an idiot. So pay attention to Joseph and the narrator if you ever plan on traveling. Joseph manages to cut 5 kebabs from 1000 yen to 425 yen. He feels very victorious. As he leaves though, we learn they’re actually worth about 150 yen for 5.

As Joseph is coming back to the cart, Enyaba starts freaking out. Suddenly tentacles explode out of her face and blood flies everywhere. Turns out the kebab salesman is Steely Dan (but for copyright purposes he’ll be called “Dan of Steel”. The band/musician name changes will only increase). They suspect he’s causing this, but the tentacles aren’t a Stand, they’re real. Silver Chariot cuts the tentacles, and when they are touched by sunlight they burn up. Turns out this is what happens when the flesh buds from the first episodes manage to grow. Joseph pleads with her to tell them the secret of Dio’s Stand as he’s betrayed her with the flesh bud, but she refuses to believe Dio would betray her, and dies.

Everyone turns to face Steely Dan, and he’s now casually drinking at a table. They let him know it’s going to be a 4 on 1 fight and that they’ll kill him, but he continues being unconcerned. he says no one will land a blow on him, and Jotaro immediately hits him twice. Joseph goes flying backwards as well, and Steely Dan exclaims he wasn’t finished, and the reason they won’t hit him anymore is because his Stand, The Lovers, mirrors any damage he takes and amplifies it several times over on the person his Stand inhabits. He pays a street sweeping kid to smack him in the leg with his broom to prove his point. He also has his Stand plant the flesh bud from Enyaba in Joseph’s brain, and it’ll destroy him the same way it destroyed Enyaba. The kid hits him again, causing Joseph more pain, but he decks the kid in the face and the kid runs away.

He’s basically blackmailing them into not letting him get hurt in any way. Even cracking his knuckles causes Joseph pain. Jotaro wants to try killing Steely Dan so fast there won’t be any time for the pain to be transferred, but everyone else holds him back. Dan even picks up a large rock and says he’ll give it to Jotaro to try and bach his head in. Jotaro relents, and Dan hits him with the rock. Joseph contemplates their situation, and he and Kakyoin run away, Polnareff follows and they tell Jotaro to ensure Dan doesn’t follow. Dan assumes they’re trying to get out of the Stand’s range, but he explains, since his Stand is so small and weak, it has range over 100 kilometers. Knowing Jotaro can’t fight back, he also steals his watch and billfold.

Meanwhile, the other three have found a store that sells TVs. The plan is to have Joseph use his Stand to see inside his brain, while Polnareff and Kakyoin shrink their Stands and send them in, like an awesome episode of Magic School Bus, with more fighting and less bad puns from that one kid.

Back with Jotaro and Dan, Dan wants to cross a ditch, but he doesn’t want to cross at the bridge, so he orders Jotaro to make himself into a bridge he can walk over. Jotaro doesn’t move, so Steely Dan kicks a steel thing hard knowing it’ll cause a lot more pain to Joseph. Jotaro swallows his pride and becomes a bridge. Dan crosses, having a good time really stomping all over him.

In Joseph’s head, using his Stand to see a road map of his brain, Silver Chariot cuts a microscopic hole so they can travel through blood vessels to find The Lovers. To Be Continued.

ED Break!

Next episode, more Stand brain surgery.

Watch JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders on Crunchyroll or talk about this episode on our forums.

The Irregular At Magic High School (Episode Sixteen)Player: KayarathClass: Content Provider

Turns out I was wrong about Tatsuya’s cover getting blown. While the power levels he was showing did raise suspicions (Number Five in things that happen during The Irregular at Magic High School: Tatsuya showing Batman levels of power), there are bigger fish to fry. First High School is a stone’s throw away from total victory, and the mob doesn’t like it one bit. A First High School victory means big financial betting loses and big financial loses leads to undergoing horrific magical augmentation. At this point, they are willing to kill the competitors, including Miyuki, and Tatsuya will have none of that.

Mirage Bat is an event where you have to magically jump up to hit specks of light, scoring points for each speck hit. Miyuki is competing in this event, so Tatsuya deployed counter measures to monitor the situation. When he finally finds the culprit, he goes bonkers on him (Number Four in things that happen during The Irregular at Magic High School: hardcore brother sister complexes). Tatsuya was gonna break his arms off if that super important magic patriarch guy wasn’t there. Now the mob is desperate enough to go, “Rock falls, everyone dies” and sends in an augmented human known as a “Generator” to cause a massacre. Is Tatsuya gonna have to take him down in a dramatic battle? Nope. Some other characters show up and make short work of the situation (Number Three in things that happen during The Irregular at Magic High School: everyone being super hardcore tough).

So about that Mirage Bat event? Thanks to the flying magic Tatsuya develops (Number Two in things that happen during The Irregular at Magic High School: Tatsuya developing new magic technologies), Miyuki easily wins the event. Flying is still one of those things magic doesn’t do, so everyone was floored when they saw Miyuki fly. Everyone then complained that only Miyuki having flying magic wasn’t fair, so the Nine School Competition committee gave the flying magic code to everyone. Of course, none of the other competitors has the power or the experience to do it as well as Miyuki.

Now that should just about wrap up the Nine School Competition. All we have left is Tatsuya taking out the mob and we can call it an arc. Hopefully, it won’t turn out to be a disappointing conflict (Number One in things that happen during The Irregular at Magic High School: me being disappointed at underwhelming conflicts), Until then, see ya next time.

Watch The Irregular at Magic High School on Daisuki or talk about this episode on our forums.

Terror in Resonance (Episode Four)Player: WhiskahsClass: Technomancer

Lisa, having run away from home, wanders around Tokyo alone in the rain at night. Finding some shelter underneath an overhang she checks her phone while another woman nearby talks on hers. Instead of some sort of reply to her call to Twelve, Lisa’s phone is filled with unread text messages from her mother and while she stares down at the glowing the screen the woman nearby makes fun of the fact that Lisa had been caught in the rain to whomever she is chatting with causing Lisa to cringe and run back out into the rain.

Though the intro scene of this episode is short, it hits on the repeating theme that Lisa just can’t seem to get away from other criticising or demeaning her. Even after running away, her mother still can reach her, even if just passively, through text while those around her seem to single her out for theirs jests. The weather even seems to be conspiring against her at this point driving home the feeling that she really is a sort of prisoner to the misery we’ve been following her through since the beginning of the show.

There are several more scenes throughout the episode of Lisa alone in various places and checking her phone. At one point she gets cornered in alleyway by two men, but manages to run away. Eventually she finds her way to what seems to be a park where Twelve appears and confronts her with his typical upbeat and carefree manner, which she rejects as it is exactly like all the other times when he arrived only to disappear again. Without allowing him to say much more, she leaves him behind only to be approached by two police officers. In the end Twelve rides between the police and takes Lisa away on his motorcycle. The two chat and laugh as they ride away on the highway to Nine and Twelve’s hideout.

Meanwhile the police continue their investigation. Having managed to find some pictures of Nine picking up the equipment for the police station bomb, they begin trying to track down where the two terrorists might be staying. Shibasaki pursues his own line of investigation however by visiting the city near the storage facility that was robbed earlier in the series. He seems convinced that Nine and Twelve are deliberately leaving the clues the police are finding and playing it to their advantage, so he relies on interviewing people who interacted with the two in the past commenting that “you can’t erase a person’s memory”. Shibasaki seems to be more interested in figuring out why the two teens are doing what they are doing than physically tracking them down.

Eventually Nine and Twelve issue a new riddle which Shibasaki begins trying to solve. This time there is a particular website set up that requires the answered to be entered to disable the bomb, but the police aren’t too interested in actually playing along. While Shibasaki was gone they managed to pinpoint where Nine and Twelve were located when they were preparing to plant the bomb in the police station back in episode 2 and deploy their officers to apprehend the teens. Shibasaki advises against it since the video warned the police not to “cheat”, which he assumes means actually trying to arrest them.

Some time passes and Shibasaki eventually figures out the answer to the riddle is his own name, but the timer on the website doesn’t stop. It turns out the police had arrived at what was now an empty apartment and Nine had noticed. Once the timer hits zero instead of an explosion all the records of the investigation of the bombings are leaked to the internet including the police assumption that the two teens have the plutonium from earlier, which hadn’t yet been reported. This move is presumably done to cause panic in the population or potentially to bring in international involvement, it’s probably too early to say.

At the apartment where Nine and Twelve actually live, Twelve and Lisa who up to a somewhat peeved Nine who says that they cannot allow Lisa to stay with them. Twelve tries to convince Nine to let Lisa stay, but he refuses. The episode ends with her fainting in the hallway.

Since last season I didn’t particularly like my show, No Game No Life while pretty much everyone else seemed to I figured I’d list anime I actually do enjoy. Not just in one list though, but two! Series and movies aren’t really comparable in my opinion, so they deserve separate lists.

Whiskahs’ Favorite Anime Series

5. Tenchi Muyo! (OVA)

4. Mushishi

3. FLCL

2. Cowboy Bebop

1. Record of Lodoss War

There are a ton more, but if I had to narrow it down to five favorites those would be it. Notable mentions: Berserk, Bubblegum Crisis(any iteration), Iria: Zeriam the Animation, Tank Police, Gundam (8th MS Team, 0083, Zeta), .hack//SIGN, Serial Experiments Lain, Betterman, Armitage III, Slayers, Spice and Wolf, Tekkaman Blade, and probably several that I’m forgetting : s

Whiskahs’ Favorite Anime Movies

5. Berserk Golden Age Arc III (Could ramble about why this is on here for awhile)

Watch Terror in Resonance on Funimation or talk about this episode on our forums.

DRAMAtical Murder (Episode Four)Player: ShoClass: Content Provider

I think I’ve come to an astute conclusion: DRAMAtical Murder is exceedingly dramatic. Melodramatic even. The episode started with Aoba’s grandma in a car with a suspicious looking dude. And that same suspicious dude seems to work for the person who made the Platinum Prison. The Prison seems to be a type of utopian place that some guy created to use for propaganda. That guy gets into the car with the suspicious person, asking how she responded.

After that, she comes home to Aoba, who doesn’t really notice that she’s been gone for a bit. Aoba encounters Clear on his roof singing as he thinks about happiness. He goes out and talks to Clear about Jellyfish and why people seek happiness. It’s kind of sweet, Clear talks about his grandfather, who gave him his current name, fondly and nostalgically. After this though, the drama really starts kicking in. Dry Juice, the Team from the first episode that Aoba is friendly with, got raided by another team; many of their guys were knocked out, probably killed.

After Dry Juice’s hideout was raided and Aoba arrives to the there, it looks like everyone, including their leader, Mizuki, disappeared. Then Aoba’s friend’s Virus and Trip arrive, stating that this was their area. This reveals to Koujaku that they are in fact, Yakuza. After a bit of conversation, they say that they’ll investigate. After a bit, Noiz appears, which makes Koujaku start a fight with him. Of course, they’re quickly interrupted by some dude with a speakerphone, threatening to kill them. I think he’s a policeman or something.

Now, Aoba starts heading home. But he is promptly interrupted by an email he gets, which looks like spam. He has a sweet chiptune tone for his mail by the way. He deletes it and it comes back again. He keeps deleting it, but more keep getting emailed to him. More get emailed to him, filling his mailbox and being relatively annoying. He ends up having to look at what it is because it’s so annoying. He opens it and it’s some sort of game, like the one in the first episode. He opens it up and it autoplays. It’s a hero not being able to save their princess with pink hair and she’s whisked off to a remote place. It’s obviously a parallel to Grams though, since just before that, it shows a dude coming into her house, presumably taking her. The episode ends after Aoba enters the house, finding a ton of people with Mophine tags on their necks as well as getting surrounded and knocked out.

Top Five List of Mysterious People in DRAMAtical Murder (Spoiler: everyone is mysterious):

5. Mizuki: He ish now a missing persons.

4. Noiz: WHY DID HE ATTACK AOBA?

3. Mysterious Car Driver: This dude is pretty mysterious, we know he works with that guy that made the Platinum Prison, but not much else.

2. Clear: This dude is all mystery really, all we know about him now is that his grandfather told him about jellyfish and that his grandfather gave him his name.

1. Grams: She obviously has a past with some of these creepy people, what could it be??